In this paper an improved set of benchmark instances for the simple assembly line balancing problem is presented. The benchmark set currently available consists of instances with 7 to 297 tasks to be executed. Although claims made in the literature state that instances with up to 1000 tasks can...

While balancing straight assembly lines is a well-studied problem, the Situation where the assembly line has a U-shaped Iayout is a still emerging research field. The advantage of these lines is that workers may simply turn around to operate at two legs of the line. Hence, there is an additional...

A flow line consists of a sequence of work places (or stations) through which one or more producta (or models) move one-way in order to be processed. Each model requires specific Operations which must be performed in a predefined Order. To be able to do so, the stations must be equipped with...

From an acclaimed popular historian comes a fresh, meticulous, and entertaining account of Henry Ford and his invention of the Model-T--the machine that defined the dawning age in America. Every century or so, our republic has been changed by a new technology: 170 years ago it was the railroad;...

This paper treats the problem of setting the inventory level of closed-loop flow lines operating under the constant-work-in-process (CONWIP) protocol. We solve a huge but simple linear program that models an entire simulation run of a closed-loop flow line in discrete time to determine a...

This paper presents a linear programming approach to analyze and optimize flow lines with limited buffer capacities and stochastic processing times. The basic idea is to solve a huge but simple linear program that models an entire simulation run of a multi-stage production process in discrete...